The time my mum asked to check my poop and other parenting fails

“Call me when you leave home, when you get home, and then when you’re ready for bed” — but Ma, I’m 17 and just going down the road for a sleepover. “Please rub haldi all over your face so you can get rid of that tan” — but Ma, I spent 3 hours sunbathing, I like the tan.

Through the course of our lives as South Asian kids, we’ve had to contend with a lot of absurd orders from our parents, and extended families. In one 4-year-old girl’s case, a bout of severe diarrhoea meant she had to restrain her natural reflex to flush away the evidence, so that her mother could check the consistency of the faeces.

While this absolute invasion of privacy was crappy itself, the shouting she got for accidentally flushing away some of her ‘evidence’ is a feeling she hasn’t been able to discharge from her memories, even two decades later.

Think of our parenting fails video as a support group of sorts — empathise with the little girl who was forgotten everywhere, from department stories to macchi markets (don’t worry, it has a happy ending) or laugh – cry with the budding Pinocchio who was made to stand outside his home with a board that proclaimed ‘I am liar’.

You never know, you might just find yourself rushing to hug your parents as you thank god for them. Or pat yourself on the back for your own style of parenting.

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